#utopian thinking

ROBINSON: …But there’s what is sometimes called the “techno-utopianism” of Silicon Valley, which often you posit as totally unrealistic—we’re going to merge with machines and upload our consciousness and do things we don’t know how to do.

But these other things you cover, which we do know how to do, are utopian, crazy, and unrealistic.

GHODSEE: Exactly. It’s like the Coalition for Radical Life Extension, these people out in Silicon Valley who are basically trying to be immortal.

Gary Younge in The Guardian. End all immigration controls – they’re a sign we value money more than people

“Oh but she wanted to just shatter the EVIL NAZI SLAVER OPPRESSORS uwu!”

Don’t try to sugarcoat it, because we remember what she ACTUALLY said, she said “One shot from this baby will shatter ANY GEM in the galaxy in the blink of an eye!” while grinning like Jack Nicholson just in case, then she said “HOMEWORLD GEMS won't be able to retake this planet when they're reduced to shards!”, and before that she described the Breaking Point as “the weapon that would've won the war”, so yeah even if her main targets were the Diamonds she was completely willing to shatter any gem that got in the way(her own allies and friends included), and she was gonna do it on a massive scale by mass-producing the Breaking Point, her ‘gamechanger’, for large-scale use on the battlefield.

Rose wanted to give a chance to all those gems still under the heel of Homeworld, Bismuth wanted to just kill anyone who was not already on their side.

Lapis(who was not even a combatant)? killed.

Centipeetle(who fought for Homeworld)? killed.

Those cute amusing Rubies? killed;

Those loving adorable Amethysts? killed;

Skinny and Carnelian and all of the Beta Quartzes? killed.

That funny brilliant Zircon? killed.

(Oh wait, not just killed, killed AND irreparably fragmented into horribly insane partial consciousnesses agonizing for eternity, so it manages to be even worse than mere death.)

And it’s also completely unnecessary because not only gems can be poofed and bubbled, so that they could be released and given a chance later, but it’s STATED that Rose Quartz’s healing tears were unique and that gave an overwhelming advantage to the Crystal Gems, who didn’t have to mercy kill any cracked soldier, so Bismuth’s plan was utterly needlessly cruel.

All of those Homeworld soldiers were not ‘oppressors’, they were victims of the Diamonds that didn’t know anything different, and the very point of the Crystal Gem Rebellion was to give a chance to know better, you do not liberate people from oppression by murdering them in cold blood.

And it was also counterpoductive because escalating the conflict with the Breaking Point would have resulted in Homeworld soldiers fighting back harder and making them more hostile, while should they accept to be ‘liberated’ by the very same gems that gleefully killed their sisters?

And if you want to read this as a parallel of real life struggles, let’s make it clear once and for all: this is not about being nice to your oppressors, this is not about “those limp-dicked liberals telling us don’t fight hate with hate uwu” or whatever strawman the Tumblr Discourse Warriors are raging at ATM, this is about the difference between those that are not willing to toss their own morals aside an those that are willing to engage in war crimes and atrocities in the name of an ideal, about the results of indulging in utopian “everything we do is righteous because we do it ‘for the sake of our cause(her words)’!” thinking, about the toxicity of simplistic Black/White militancy that has doomed left-wing movements time and time again.

...Oh right and she tried to kill Rose and Steven for rejecting her genocidal plans, because ‘Nobody's more "Crystal Gem" than SHE is’, just in case she wasn’t Gem Megatron enough already(down to the murder weapon on the right arm and getting stabbed by the youngling)...with the added bonus that, had she succeeded at killing Rose, the Crystal Gem Rebellion would have been doomed.

Spheres of Influence – Ukraine vs Russia

Going to war over spheres of influence.  The 21st century is going to be just as rough as the 20th century. “Russia says, for instance, that it is threatened by Nato expanding eastwards and potentially including Ukraine as a member. The response of the Nato powers is to say that its door should remain open to all and, more privately, that Ukraine is unlikely to join the organisation in the…

Amatonormativity kinda benefits me, as an aro who is probably also ace (still working things out, despite being in my thirties, any questioning youngsters reading might take comfort from that).

Because I am not interested in dating/romance I am not expected by those around me to participate in conversations about sex, no one expects me to have it and my monkish existence isn't questioned.

Because sex and romance are so inextricably bound up in amatonormativity and present culture that of course I'm not doing sex stuff. And that makes me annoyed and sad.

Annoyed because it's my business, not general society's and sad because that thinking hurts people.

It hurts allosexual aros who risk censure for living truly and honestly as themselves. Angry because sexism and racism feed into that and heteronomativity looms over all this like an iceberg, ready to sink us all.

It hurts alloromantic aces for whom corrective rape is a justifiable fear.

It hurts society as a whole as part of so many other oppressive systems of thought that imprison us all into what society says we should do, rather than doing the things and forming the ethical relationships we yearn for, to interact without power-plays or cultural baggage that exists only to imprison us.